


Dappled in Sunlight

by orphan_account



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 07:43:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are together, in the end, as Cersei always knew they would be. But if she knows yet, that this is the end, it is only somewhere deep down inside her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dappled in Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> this is the 2nd dumbest fic i've ever written, but for once i make no apologies. i thought you deserved a warning, and now you have been warned.

They are together, in the end, as Cersei always knew they would be. But if she knows yet, that this is the end, it is only somewhere deep down inside her.

Jaime is watching her bathe in a pond under the sun. It is a nice day, a beautiful day, and Cersei has not seen the sun in gods know how long. But she doesn't revel in its warmth despite having not felt it since the new queen locked her in the cells. Cersei goes through the motions of cleansing with disinterest. She is conscious of his gaze, not a lustful one, and has even less interest in that.

When she emerges she goes to stand before Jaime, casting her shadow over him. Water drips from the tips of her fingers, from the triangular thatch of curling golden hair between her legs.

Jaime grimaces at her, or maybe he means it to be a smirk, and says, "Sweet sister."

It is a sad, pathetic mockery. She feels her lips twitch into a grimace of their own. 

But it is not really the words that disgust her. It is just Jaime. Jaime who had everything she deserved, who could have given her Westeros but had not, who had forsaken her when she needed him most. Bearded, one–handed Jaime.

He looks as hideous as she imagines she is, with her hair cropped raggedly above her shoulders and lines on her face. (And why not? Wasn't he always her mirror? Why would it be any different now, just because it pleased neither of them to be the other's mirror?)

She wouldn't touch him now, _won't_ touch him now, but he's reaching for her just as she's reaching for him, in tandem. They fall to the ground, her legs tangling with his. She wonders if he cannot help himself as she cannot help herself. If he loathes himself as much as she loathes herself for wanting him. Or maybe she does not want him at all—surely she does not, how could she?—and she is just seeking that old familiarity, or she is just mirroring his actions (or he hers?).

Against hers his mouth is too soft, as well as both familiar and strange, His stump grazes her back and she shudders, inadvertently pushing herself closer to him. Jaime laughs and his beard scratches her cheek. He is kissing her, everywhere, working a languid trail from her jaw, down her neck, along her shoulders, to her breasts, while she struggles to pull his tunic over his head.

"I like you best like this."

The grass below her prickles her bare skin unbearably. His good hand holds her wrists above her head. She struggles futilely. "Trapped?"

That seems to amuse him. He leans back, a bit, so that the sun shines full in her face and she must squint to continue looking at him. (She does not; she turns her head to the side instead.)

"Naked, under the sun." For a moment he is contemplative. "Despite what you have become, I still think you the most beautiful."

Cersei thinks of her ribs poking at the surface of her skin, her sagging breasts, her queenship (a younger, more beautiful queen). "You always were a sentimental fool. I liked _you_ —"

"With two hands, I know." He murmurs the words against her neck. She feels them travel through her. "I could wear the golden one, if it please you."

She flinches. It wouldn't. It wouldn't at all.

"Don't," she hisses, "don't touch me. Get off."

Jaime releases her wrists. He is kissing her again and as her protests become moans his fingers slip between her thighs and travel their way up a familiar path. The fingers of his left hand, she realizes dimly. It had always been his right, before. Her leg is hooked over his right shoulder, the arm with the stump, but she doesn't have to look if she does not want to. 

He stops short of her release and drags the wet tips of his hand up her belly. Her mouth meets his in something that can't quite be called a kiss at all. Something hard, hungry, hot. This is battle, not bedding; it feels like fighting, not fucking. (The two aren't so different, maybe. Hadn't they loved to fight, and fought to love? Somehow everything had changed, and yet, nothing.) He matches her every move and for the moment they are lions again. It doesn't last long.

It in rough, brutal (it is what she needs) when he enters her and he groans as she does. His breath is hot on her neck as she rolls her hips to meet his.

Jaime is in her, filling her, and for the first time she does not feel complete. That makes her angry. At him. Herself. The world. There is something in her blood, she can hear it pounding in her ears, thinks she can feel it running under her skin. (It might be a lion.) She rakes her nails down his back and takes his nipple between her teeth and still nothing will satisfy her, nothing will make her whole.

It might be relief she feels, when he spills within her and rolls onto his back to lie under the sun beside her. It might, too, be regret, but for what, Cersei would not be sure.

They lie there, on their backs. Side by side, unspeaking.

"We should have been one person." That is her voice. One body, she means.

"No," he says after a time. "I should not like to be you. You let the world destroy you, but you still can't see it. You have become something ugly. We both have."

The itch of the grass seems almost comfortable now. Her ire has passed.

(She understands, suddenly. Or maybe not suddenly. She always knew, it feels, but she can't have always known.)

"Why here?" The sun beats down. The pond is still. She would rather be on the throne, that beautiful barbed monstrosity.

"I told you." His hand tangles in her damp hair. She lets it. He murmurs and she does not hear, "Dappled in sunlight."

(Cersei knows him for what he is. Her mirror, her shadow, her other half. He is all those still, though now that brings them both displeasure.)

"You swore to love me eternally." It in an accusation, if anything.

"I did. I do. I shouldn't, I don't want to," he breathes out a laugh, "but I do. I don't think I could stop."

(She knows he is her _valonqar_ , too, and she doesn't know since when she has known, only that she knows, she knows.)

"You won't forgive me." His hand leaves her hair and traces down her nose, along her jaw. He is on one elbow now, hovering above her. Cersei looks past him, at the sky. It is too blue, too bright. "You won't understand, but I'm doing it for the woman I swore to love, to save her from herself."

(Once she had thought they would die as they came into the world—together.)

He kisses her. It is chaste and painfully reminiscent of their first kiss, when they had known nothing but themselves. There had been no fear in her life then, or disappointment.

He pulls away and for the moment there is only Jaime.

And then she is reaching, claws extended, for his green eyes, flecked with gold, so like her own, as his fingers wrap around her throat.

Somewhere, there is a lark singing.


End file.
